Mutant Slaves
When an organic dies from Hierarchy radiation (such as that emitted by a Defiler), their body may come back to life via horrendous mutations, spawning a zombie-like Mutant Slave General Mutant Slaves slightly resemble walking corpses, with rotting flesh, radiation-filled sacks,and certain body parts missing. The amount of damage varies between slaves, with some being more or less intact while others are missing such things as their lower jaw and guts. Slaves come in two variations: Human/Masari Mutants and Mutant Cows. Human/Masari Mutant When a Human or Masari dies from radiation contamination, the mutant resembles a skeletal humanoid with glowing, puss-filled sacks, missing teeth, glowing red eyes, and exposed organs. The zombies moan and wheeze as they move, suggesting that their barely alive bodies are in extreme agony. After a certain amount of time or if they take too much damage, the mutant's body will implode and shower the area with rotten remains. Human/Masari mutants are best used against turrets or other organics, since their clawing is unable to be redirected and their death explosion is quite powerful. Mutant Cow Generally a result of losing a Reaper Drone equipped with Volatile Reactors while harvesting cattle, Mutant Cows do not suffer the degenerative effect that their humanoid counterparts have and deal more damage with their ramming attack. Mutant Cows are able to crush light infantry such as Ohm Robots by charging them and are slightly more resilient than the humanoid slaves. Campaign Mutants first appear during a Novus infiltration mission in the Midwestern United States. There, the zombies along with Defilers pin down a military force, under the command of Randal Moore. Mirabel saves the non-infected units and explains that the Hierarchy has a contaminant that they are using to create the slaves. One Zombie attempted to attack Moore, but it was fortunately put out of its misery before it could do any damage. Moore reveals to Mirabel that the Hierarchy had been using "some kind of walking unit" to suck up civilans while others had been herded into three large holding pens. Each of the pens had a pair of Defilers guarding them and, if the forcefields where disabled, would walk in and mutate all the captured humans to attack. Later in the Hierarchy campaign, Kamal Re'x sends a pair of Defilers to soften up a Masari outpost to allow his general to capture the Masari Queen. However, a tactical officer in charge of the operation discovered that the Masari presence was too great for a mere pair of Defilers to deal with, so he ordered them to mutate several villages worth of humans to do the fighting for them. Any remaining zombies were then used by Orlok to aid in capturing the prince. Tactical Application Human/Masari Mutant Slaves are mainly used as cannon fodder and must be in large numbers to be effective. Luckily, they are practically free (depending on source) and can be fairly easily amassed. Lone slaves are good for scouting out areas and mutating civilians while a pack of them can easily deal with most infantry threats. En-mass slaves are particularly deadly to turrets, since their melee blows put them out of the turrets minimum range and they are unaffected by Redirection Turrets. Mutant Cow Generally, it is not advised to mutate cows in multiplayer matches since they are worth quite a bit of raw materials (500). However, if one is created it can be used in the same role as the Defiler by placing it near a location where humans exit a building, allowing it to mutate civilians as they exit. Mutant Cows are slightly more useful in Scenario games when attacking with Nufai, since the keeper of secrets does not possess a Glyph Carver and thus is forced to use whatever he has with him. Trivia * Interestingly, there is an unused model for the human mutants showing a more typical "horror film" style zombie. This zombie appears more or less like a civilian male with a torn cloathing, open sores, and a radioactive glow around its body. This particular model may have been cut due to rating issues (it has blood on its body and its clothing would appear soaked in blood due to the Hierarchy's natural faction color) or alternatively it may have been replaced with the current set to both appear more alien and to allow it to serve for both Masari and Human mutants. * Some unused animations, sound effects, and a certain particle effect (pp_Puke.alo) appears to suggest that Slaves were at one time going to vomit on victims to mutate them. * When created, Slaves will automatically attack nearby organics, such as fleeing civilians, cows, or Masari. Unlike Defilers, Slaves will almost always mutate their victim when it is killed, increasing their numbers. * Even when the human/masari mutants are destroyed, they are useful because if a larger unit crushes them (eg: Mirabel & Viktor), the dying Slave will release an explosion that will damage and leave residual radiation on the enemy unit. Stats Type: Small Organic Movement: Infantry Max. Speed: 1.4 Health: 100 Armor: Civilian Infantry Sight: 125 Crush Defense: 9 Crush Power: N/A Type: Small Organic Movement: Infantry Max. Speed: 1.5 Health: 120 Armor: Civilian Infantry Sight: 150 Crush Defense: 30 Crush Power: 15 Weaponry Type: Slave Claws Range: 0-20 Damage: 8 Recharge: 1.8 seconds Type: Slave Bite Range: 0-20 Damage: 12 Recharge: 1.8 seconds Production Method: Chance to be created when enemy or neutral organic unit is killed by friendly Hierarchy radiation Prerequisites: None Cost: N/A Time: N/A Pop: 0.1 Upgrades Advanced Mutagens Effect: Degeneration is slowed Method: Research Mutagen Branch Suite 3 ''' '''Gamma Radiation Effect: Radiation damage increased to 12 per second Method: Research Mutagen Branch Suite 3 Irradiated Shots Effect: Slave attacks are irradiated, inflicting radiation damage over time Method: Research Mutagen Branch Suite 1 Damage: 5 per second Duration: 5 seconds Category:Hierarchy Units Category:Humans